South Korea is pushing for a three-way strategic dialogue with the U.S. and China next month as part of its efforts to step up policy coordination over North Korea and other regional issues, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said Monday.
Seoul and Canberra will also launch their first joint meeting of foreign and defense ministers on July 4 to reinforce their security cooperation and middle power diplomacy.
The trilateral consultation was a core component of President Park Geun-hye’s foreign policy package and deemed key to her “trustpolitik” approach aimed at reengaging Pyongyang while deterring its security threat.
“We’re pursuing the Korea-U.S.-China strategic dialogue with many interests as we think of it as a very useful way to discuss the stalled six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs and various problems in Northeast Asia,” Yun told his first news conference since taking office in February.
The meeting will start as a public-private partnership where the participants will discuss “much more comfortably” and then evolve to a state level, he noted.
Seoul is scheduled to hold a separate vice-minister-level strategic dialogue in Beijing from June 3-4 before Park meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in their first summit later that month.
“Under the current situation, rather than proceed directly to governmental talks, it will be better to begin on the 1.5-track process to do some ground-leveling work and after fine-tuning views with each other, to transition to the next level,” said Yun.
The new strategic dialogue with Australia, dubbed two-plus-two, is designed to ramp up collaboration on their shared regional and global agenda, Yun said.
South Korea holds the annual joint meeting of foreign and defense ministers with the U.S., while Canberra has two other such partners ― Washington and Tokyo.
“We and Australia shares many strategic interests on the Northeast Asia and global agenda, and we’re carrying out middle-power diplomacy together,” the minister added.
Meanwhile, Seoul and Washington plan to meet in Seoul from June 3-4 to resume negotiations for a revision of their civilian nuclear pact which has recently been extended by two years.
The allies are expected to hold their first talks over how to share costs for some 28,500 U.S. troops stationed here, Yun added.
By Shin Hyon-hee (
heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
